Zarkon

@wernerweiss Thank you for your thoughts. I do appreciate the critiques, especially from someone who has finished The Confederacy! By the way, you have a great build log of her and you did a fantastic job. Your Confederacy is excellent. Jeff

@wernerweiss Hello! I wanted to let you know that I have not glued the cap rails on yet. Gluing the cap rails is on page 118-119 in the instructions and I'm on page 42. I wanted to make sure that the molding strips would be at the correct placement, so I cut out a cap rail and a volute laser cut piece and test fitted them to the model. I also placed (not glued) the 1/16" strip ontop of the waist as well to check the lower molding strip. This next pic shows the cap rail in place along with the waist piece. This pic is where I have overlapped the volute piece over the top of the cap rail and ontop of the molding piece I glued on earlier. It seems to line up with the molding very well! I think I have the molding pieces glued into the correct position on the model. On page 39 of the manual, it states that finishing the wales/molding/painting is optional at this point of the build if the builder wants a break from planking. I sure wanted a break from planking! Haha! So that's why I continued with the optional steps before continuing to plank the hull. Thanks for your feedback! Jeff

@wernerweiss Hey! Thanks for the feedback! I did check the instructions too, and it does specify to add the molding first next to the waist. I did check the laser cut cap rails to see how far back they are cut to match up with the molding pieces. The instructions say, to place the molding pieces correctly, place a 1/16" strip ontop of the waist and make sure the molding strip sits evenly with it. I also checked the instruction photos and it also shows the molding strips sit slightly back, not up to the edge of the waist. I think you have a good idea of adding the channels along with the molding strip to make sure it has a nice curve. Also doing so won't make you cut out the molding strips where the channels will go. I might do this with the other side, but i haven't decided yet. I can be a little clumsy and if I have channels sticking out from the hull, I might accidentally knock them off! Haha! Thanks for your input! Jeff

Hey all! Happy holidays and new year! I added the molding strips to one side of the hull and wanted to share some pics. I tried my best with it. I did stain them first before gluing them on. Now into the other side to repeat the entire process! Thanks all for reading! Jeff

Hey guys! It took me a little bit of time to decide what to do next. I decided to do things are little out of order. First, I placed painters tape where the lower molding strip will go and made sure it was a good even curve. Then I marked it with a pencil. I then took the tape off and re positioned it slightly below that line. I hope the pic comes out ok. The reason I placed it below that line, is so that the black paint will overlap the molding strip so it will look even. I then proceeded to fill any gaps ( there were 2 very small gaps) and sanded it down smooth. This was done for the planks above the tape. After this was complete, I pained the planks black above the painters tape. During this process, the wood strips arrived from Model Expo! So I knew I was going to complete the main wales next. There was a slight problem though. I accidentally wrote down the wrong number of strips. The main wales are 4 rows of 2 planks each. So that's 8 planks total. But I like 2 extra strips just in case. My issue was, I wrote down 10 strips when I needed at minimum 16 strips. Yup. My bad. But Model Expo was quick to take my order and deliver the 10 strips free of charge. So that was super nice of them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the other strips I need to finish the main wales. I'll figure it out. Anyway, I then started the main wales on one side of the ship. I'm the first to admit, I'm not that great with putting painters tape down and not having some paint run through the tape. So before I placed the top main wale plank, I rounded the top edge then pained mostly just the top edges black. This should hopefully make for a much cleaner look than placing the top wale strake on first. This allowed me to not have to worry about painting the top edge and accidentally painting the black strake. I continued down the 4 plank rows. Since these will be pained, I applied some filler to smooth out any small gaps or ubeaven surfaces. As i was planking the wales I noticed my lower counter tree nails weren't great. What I mean is, I did not sand enough of the wood filler off the counter so it looks sloppy. So I sanded the entire lower counter again to get off the extra wood filler. Once all this was completed, I taped up the side for painting the main wales. I then proceeded to pain the wales. This was the result. That was satisfying to see it with the wales pained. I then decided to stain and varnish both sides of the ship. This will include the channel wales, Blake strake, and the lower counter again. I wanted to do both sides because it seemed like the right thing to do. But before doing this step, I had to get the molding strips ready. I followed the directions in the instructions using the provided molding scraper. This is how it turned out. This third picture was important because to make a good clean run of the molding, the bottom most requires 2 molding strips. You have to be careful when picking and sanding both strips. Some of the molding strips were wider than the others. So you have to choose 2 which had the same width or it will look off when glued on. Then last night, I stained and varnished both the ship and the molding pieces. I stained/varnished the molding pieces before placing them on the model. Here is what it looks like varnished. It's currently drying so I can't work on it tonight. The last thing I will need to do is add the molding strips. Whew! That was a lot. Let me know what you guys think! Thanks! Jeff

@CiscoH You are right. I'll have to get used to edge bending. But at least it's only for the wales, for now! Thanks for the kind words! I'm trying to take my time and not rush anything. Since my last update, I still have not heard back from ModelExpo about a few more 5/32" x 1/16" needed to start and complete the second layer of the main wales. I guess I haven't heard back yet because of Thanksgiving. I hope to hear from them soon. Because I don't have enough strips for the main wales, I instead added the channel wales and the black strake. I have been able to finish adding both! Here are some pics. I first completed the channel wales. After the channel wales, I then added the second layer black strake. This was a little tough to try and make the strake run nicely down the hull. I feel it's easier to spot a misaligned strake on bigger models than smaller ones! Here are some pics of the ship after I added the black strakes. I'm not sure exactly what to work on next. Should I continue with the molding strips; painting/varnishing, then tree nailing? Or wait for the wale strips and start planking below the wales? I'm leaning towards adding the molding strips and paining / varnishing. I really don't want to starting planking lower down the hull until all these steps including the wales are completed. Thanks everyone for your likes! Jeff

Hey all! I completed the first layer of the wales and the first rows below it. Here are some pics of my progrssion: I hope you can see this in the photo above, but the last wale strake and the strake after that both go under the lower counter. I hope this is correct. I had to start edge bending the planks as i I got lower onto the hull as they would not fit correctly near the bow. This was more prevelant on the last wale strake and the one below that. Here is an example: Hopefully this comes out clear, but if you look at the bulkhead that is in focus, the top plank does not lay flat on the bulkhead at all. Instead it juts out. This causes a massive issue with trying to place the next plank above it as it will cause the next plank to form a gap between both it and the previous row of planks. No amount of sanding can fix this issue. To fix this, I removed the badly placed plank. I then laid a new plank on top as shown below. I then marked where the center of the biggest gap was on the new strake and edge bent it using the mark as the center point. After placing it back onto the model, the curve now looks like this: Notice the top of the plank sits against the bulkhead. Whew! I continued and finished both sides. These next pics I thought was just cool because it shows off what we will never see again as we continue to plank. The underside of the gundeck and bulkheads and supports. Finally, here are a few pics of it placed upright. I hope it looks alright! Lastly, I need to say I ran out of 5/32" x 1/16" strips! I literally have 1 full strip left and some left overs. I did not throw any out. I used all of them that were provided in the kit. So I have contacted Model Shipways ( Model Expo) to see if I can get 10 more strips so I can finish the second layer of the wales. I did fill out their ordering form using their instructions. We shall see! So what I CAN place on next are the 5/32" x 1/32" strips used for the channel wales and black strake. So I will start on that soon while I wait for the new strips. Thanks all! Jeff

Those gunports look really good. Cutting out the top of the gunports isn't easy and I'm glad you took your time with it. Well done! Jeff

@glbarlow Thank you for your advice about sanding the tops of th bulkheads. What I actually ended up doing was to sand down the boxwood gunport frames that protruded higher than the bulkheads. I sanded these at an angle to give more material to the next adjacent bulkhead. I just didn't want them protruding and somehow getting stuck on something. Because knowing me, that would happen! I looked at your build log and you have done a fantastic job! I'm looking at your placement of the wales too to help gadge if mine are alright. Thank you for the advice! Jeff

@Erik W Thank you very much for linking to your log. You have done a fantastic job on your planking! The seams really came out well and the square tuck looks really good! After comparing, I think mine looks ok but I feel maybe not quite enough curve at the bow. But maybe it is enough. Maybe I'm being too much of a nitpick. Concerning the stern, I might make a copy of the stern from the plans and tape it on the model to see if I think there is too much of a curve. I'll also look through your and others build logs to conduct more comparisons of the stern and bow. The last thing I want is too much of a curve on either. That would mess up quite a bit of the planking. Thank you for the advice Erik! Jeff

Hey all! I need another set of eyes. The first plank is the most important to lay the rest of the planks. I have placed the first wale strakes on one side of the hull and would like to ask of you guys think if looks like it's in the correct place. If it looks good, I'll continue with the other side's first strakes so I can make sure they look as even as possible. If not, I don't mind taking these 2 pieces off and adjusting. Fixing the planking now will save a lot of headaches later. Thanks!! Jeff Houston

Ross, you have done amazing work! It looks fantastic! I really like how the decking turned out. Nicely done! Jeff

Thank you Ronald! I agree I really like how the edges are turning out! I looked at it again today and noticed the stain has lightened some. I think that's great! Because later, I will need to add in all those tree nails and stain/varnished again. I was a little worried that if I stained again, it would be too dark. I'm going to take a break from her for a few days to allow the stain/varnished to finish drying and stop smelling. In the meantime, I'll be working on my Cheerful build starting tomorrow. Going to start planking the first layer of the wales! Thanks all! Jeff

Thanks all! So I finally finished planking the other side of the hull. This step takes so long as each piece must have the correct angle and length. Whew. This feels like an accomplishment! Here are some pictures of the other side finished. What I also did, was to make sure at the stern, the tops of the hull planking were as level as possible for both sides. This should help make the ship look much more even when installing the cap rails a lot later in the build. What I did, was to take a wide strip of boxwood (since it's heavier and harder so it won't bend with a level on top) and place it on different sections of the hull planking and sanded down the tops of the planks where needed to make it as even as possible. After that, I tried my best to sand the hull as smooth as I could with 220 grit sandpaper. This took a little while as there were lots of small spots to try and even out. According to the instructions, the next part was to stain and varnish the entire portion of the hull that was planked! I took about 30 minutes to setup my stations. I first used a pre-stain wood treatment coat. I then wiped off the access after 5 minutes. As it was drying, i mixed together a 1:1 ratio of Minwax Golden Oak stain and clear polyurethane varnish. I needed to thin out the golden oak stain to try and keep from blotching as much as possible. After putting on the stain and varnish, this was the result. In the pic above, there was some blotching near the top above the first few gunports. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think quite a bit of that will be painted black a little later in the build. So I'm not too worried. What I was surprised by was how well the pencile edging came through! I made sure to only pencile one edge of the planks. I am glad I didn't darken both plank edges that meet or it would be too dark! Please let me know what you guys think! It will look different once it's painted and the wales/ molding strips are added. But I do feel I finished a huge step in the build and it feels very good! 😀 Thanks all for reading and for your comments and likes. I do appreciate them a lot! Jeff

Hey all! Thank you for all your comments and likes! I have finally finished planking the gun deck outer hull. It really does take a long time to plank the hull on the gun deck. Here is an example of a complex strip I have to create to plank around the gunports. This piece was created for the top of the gun ports but also has to go around a sheave shell. These pieces take a while to make! The next pictures show how far I have gotten so far with the planking. The planking will go faster until I reach the quarterdeck gunports. At least the quarterdeck gunports do not require the rabbet as the gun decks gun ports do! Whew! I'm almost there! Thanks all! Jeff